Seduction In Death

"Yeah, in my ass. I call it Summerset."

"I see your droll wit hasn't suffered. Just a bit of a bug," he said to Roarke. "Due, I imagine, to exhaustion, stress, and juvenile eating habits. We can ward it off, and treat the symptoms. I'll go get what she needs. She'll do best with a day or two in bed."

"Get off me," she said in a low, clear voice when Summerset went out. "Right now."

"No." Her arms were trembling under his grip, and he didn't think it was all from temper. "Not until we've dealt with this. Are you cold?"

"No." She was freezing. And the pitiful struggle she'd put up had awakened aches everywhere.

"Then why are you shivering?" He bit off an oath, snagged a throw from the back of the couch and had it flung over her before she could push the order from brain to body to move.

"Damn it, Roarke, he's going to come back and poke at me, and try to make me drink one of his weird brews. I just need a hot shower. Let me up. Have a heart."

"I do, and it's yours." He lowered his brow to hers. "That's the problem."

"I'm feeling better. Really." It was a lie, poorly executed as her voice was begi

He had to smile. "I love you, Eve."

"Then don't let him back in here." Her eyes wheeled as she heard the elevator doors open. "He's coming," she whispered. "In the name of everything holy, save me."

"She needs to sit up." Summerset set a tray on the table. On it was a glass of milky liquid, a trio of white tablets, and a pressure syringe.

Eve let herself go limp, and when Roarke eased back, she sprang. It was a sweaty battle, but a short one. Without batting a lash, Summerset stepped over, pinched her nose closed, dropped the tablets in her mouth, and chased them down her throat with the liquid.

He smiled at Roarke while she sputtered. "I recall having to do that to you a time or two."

"That's where I learned it."

"Get her shirt off. The vitamin booster will work fastest this way."

To save time, and his own skin, Roarke simply ripped off her sleeve. "How's that?"

"Good enough."

She'd gone past anger into weeping, humiliating herself. Everything hurt – head, body, pride. When the syringe pressed against her arm, she barely felt it.

"Shh, baby. Shh." Shaken, Roarke stroked her hair and rocked her. "It's all over now. Don't cry."

"Go away," she said even as she clung to him. "Just go away."

"Leave me alone with her." Summerset touched Roarke's shoulder, felt a pang when he saw the naked emotion on his face. "Give us a few minutes."

"All right." Roarke held her tight another minute. "I'll be in the gym."

When he set her aside, she curled into a ball. Summerset sat beside her, saying nothing until she'd sniffled herself into silence.

"What he feels for you overwhelms him," Summerset began. "There was never anyone else. The women who came and went before you were diversions, temporary interests. He might care, because despite everything that was done to him, he's a man with a large capacity for caring. And still, there was no one before you. Don't you see how he worries?"

She uncurled herself, rubbed her hands over her wet face as if she could rub away the embarrassment of the tears. "He shouldn't worry."

"He does and he will. You need rest, Lieutenant, and a few days without work and worry. And so does he. So very much does he. He won't take his without you."

"I can't. Not now."

"Won't."

She closed her eyes. "Go up to my office, look at the faces of the dead pi

"He wouldn't, would he? But to do what you need to do, you require your strength, energies, and wit." He leaned over, picked up the glass. "Finish it."

She frowned at the glass. She hated to admit whatever he'd given her was already working. So she wouldn't. "It's probably poison."

"Poison," he said, amused. "Why didn't I think of that? Perhaps next time."

"Har-har." She took the glass, downed the remaining contents. "There must be a way to make this taste less like sewage."

"Certainly." He set the glass back on the tray, then got to his feet. "But I'm entitled to my small pleasures. I might suggest you try some moderate exercise now."

She didn't have time, but she took it anyway and went down to the gym. He wasn't using the machines, he rarely did, but was steadily, sweatily, working his way through bench presses. He had the screen on, with the audio set to spew out the various stock reports.

She found she didn't understand the words any more than she did the symbols.

She went to him, knelt by his head. "I'm sorry."

He continued to lift, set, lower. "Feeling better?"

"Yeah. Roarke, I'm sorry. I was an idiot. Don't be mad at me. I don't think I could handle it right now."

"I'm not mad at you." He lifted the bar into the safety, then slid out from under. "The situation occasionally rips my throat out."

"I can't do anything else. I can't be anything else."

He reached down for his towel, rubbed it over his face. "I wouldn't want you to do or be anything else. It's beyond my capabilities not to react as I do when you run yourself into the ground."

"You usually drag me back out before the ground closes over my head."

He looked at her face. Still so pale, he thought. Nearly transparent. "Doesn't seem I was quite quick enough this time."

"Let's go to Mexico."

"Excuse me?"

"The house in Mexico." She figured if she could surprise him, she was still in reasonable shape. "It's been a while. Why don't we take a long weekend once this is over?"

Considering her, he drew the towel between his hands, then hooked it behind her head to bring her closer. "Who's dragging who back out now?"

"Let's drag each other. Give me time to close this down, and you do whatever it is you do to clear a few days. Then we'll run away. We'll lie on the beach, we'll get drunk and have monkey sex. We'll watch film discs until our eyes fall out."

"Go back to the monkey sex."

She laid her hands on his cheeks. "I've got to get ready for the briefing. We've got a deal, right?"

"Yes." He pressed his lips to her forehead, relieved to find it cool again. "We definitely have a deal."

She got up, but when she reached the door, turned back to look at him. He still sat on the bench, lean and sweaty in a black muscle shirt. He'd tied his hair back and had yet to bother with shoes.

And he watched her through eyes so brilliantly blue, it seemed she could dive through them, and into him.

"There was never anybody before you," she said. "I just wanted to say that. And when I did what I do, and it opened a crack in me like it did last night, there was nobody there to hold on to me. I didn't want anyone to hold on to me. Until you. And I got through and I got by, and it was okay. But I think, maybe, if I'd just kept getting through and getting by, I'd have come to a point where I couldn't do it anymore. And if I couldn't do it anymore, it'd be the end of me, Roarke."

She took a steadying breath. "So when you hold on to me, you're helping me stand up, one more time. And the dead, you're standing for them, too. I just wanted to say that."

She went out quickly, and left him staring after her.

When she strode into her office at six minutes after six, she was heavy-eyed, pale, but clear-headed. She found McNab and Peabody had already raided the AutoChef. And Feeney, just arrived, was helping himself to the spread set out across her desk.

"What the hell do you think this is, the Breakfast Barn?"

"Gotta have fuel." Feeney munched into a strip of bacon. "Mother Mary, it's pig meat. Know how long it's been since I had a slice of real pig?"